Services on the internet may be accessed from various devices, such as computers, mobile phones and televisions, such as in smart TV and IPTV technology. As an example, Video on Demand (VOD) or Audio and Video on Demand (AVOD) services allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content when the user has a demand or need to consume the service. IPTV or Internet TV technology may then be used to bring video on demand to televisions and personal computers. Television VOD systems may stream the content, thereby allowing viewing in real time, or they may allow download the video or audio content to e.g. a computer or portable media player for viewing at any time.
Accessed services typically use authenticate and authorize of a user by means of log-in, e.g. using a specific username and password for each user, and connect this log-in to billing mechanisms such as credit cards.
However, this inter alia requires storing of credentials in several devices (TV:s, computers etc) for auto-log, which may be a security issue and a lot of identification information (usernames, passwords) to keep track of. Further, existing solutions often require credit card numbers to be entered and stored in service provider's databases.
Moreover, hand-over of an ongoing session between platforms and networks may be a problem, especially if the networks are open and if the presentation devices used for rendering the services are not integrated with the same accounting and service delivery platforms. Thus, it may be difficult to re-route traffic in a service flow between different presentation devices, peers, without further authentication and authorization information from the user as the session is anchored between the server a peer. Further, at handover between e.g. a TV and a mobile phone, it may also be difficult to seamlessly re-adapt the service in terms of e.g. bit rate and properties of the media content (resolution etc).
In addition to video and audio services (streaming, progressive download or download) there is a range of other services also suffering from inconvenient authentication and authorization. Example services are storage services, web pages requiring log in, surveillance services and communication services.
Thus, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for providing internet and so called Cloud services to a user in an efficient and user-friendly way facilitating the user to consume services across different presentation platforms, but still with high level of integrity and security.